1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a printing system of the type in which plural types of printing media, e.g., form sheets, are set in a printer, and in printing, a desired printing medium is selected from among these printing media.
2. Background
In the printing of form sheets, difficulty arises in that the form sheets are different in sheet size value, type of sheet (regular sheet, cardboard, envelope, postcard or the like), setup values (sheet feeding quantity, gap length between head and platen and the like), sheet paths (bin, sheet tray, sheet tractor, and the like), and the like. A sole prior technique to check the types of printing media, e.g., sheets of paper, set in the printer, more exactly the sheet paths, is that a user actually checks the sheets set in the printer by the eye. A known technique to select a printing medium to be used for printing from among plural types of printing media set in the printer is to designate a medium or sheet path having the selected printing medium set therein by the host computer coupled with the printer. The printing medium selecting technique requires the user to check the types of sheets set in the sheet paths of the printer in advance. When the technique is used, every time the printing medium used for printing is selected, the user must change the printer setup values to the values tailored to the selected printing medium. The setup value changing work is troublesome for the user. Particularly, in a computer environment where a plurality of users use a single printer in share on a network, the problem is more serious since a place where the printer is located is remote from users or the form sheet for one user is different from for another user.